Yet as she stood there, trembling-kneed, her heart grew strangely light; she felt suddenly uplifted, happy, in the midst of she knew not what mysterious dangers. Here was the chance to do as Mother Benedicta, that saint on earth, had bidden her long ago. To fight Beryl’s battles bravely, and in doing it rub out, perhaps, those years that had been so evil. For evil they had been; she had never been sure as she pretended that Raimond Erle and she were man and wife. She had snatched at happiness, had cared little if that happiness were a sin, and now---- “I have my chance to blot it out,” she said to herself deliberately. “I’ll save the child if I have to die for her. Perhaps Mother Benedicta’s saints won’t shut me out of heaven then.” The hope that had never yet left her, that Raimond Erle might some day come back to her, ceased suddenly, as her thoughts of revenging herself died in the new hope that came over her. “I’ll never see him again,” she thought, little knowing, “and I’ll beat Mr. Egerton yet! A better woman would have been a far more easily managed governess. One like me knows too much. For I’m sure--sure that he brought that girl here to put her out of the way, and his warnings to Salome and me were nothing but a blind.” The danger she was in made her almost gay. Quite boldly she stepped out on the veranda and looked through those shutters where that strange, hunting thing had scented her. What was it? It had looked, with its spread-eagle arms and legs, like an ape. She would find out in the morning if there were such things here. Then she shuddered, with a quailing at even her cold heart. Salome had thanked Heaven she was black! Then the thing, whatever it was, only attacked white people. Could it be some dreadful, half-crazy black man, run wild in the woods? “I can’t get a pistol,” mused Andria dryly, “but I can get a knife!” and she went quietly in to bed. The thing, whatever it was, was gone. * * * * * Bright and early she woke to a new day. Amelia Jane, with a tea-tray, stood by her bed, and Andria, after a dazed instant, remembered where she was, and saw, too, that Amelia Jane looked tired. She was the youngest of the colored women and the stupidest, and she stared as she answered Andria’s good morning. Fully dressed, she had lain down on her bed, her only toilet for the night having been to take out the pins from the great circle of ruddy hair that hung round her in a glorious mass. Under the servant’s wondering eyes, she laughed. “I must have fallen asleep,” she said. “Don’t tell any one, Amelia.” “You wasn’t awake late, was you?” the woman returned curiously. “I don’t know. I thought I heard footsteps, Amelia, last night!” Amelia Jane put down her tray. “Don’t speak of ’em--they isn’t lucky!” she said. “They’s haunts, miss.” “Do you mean ghosts?”